JW's don't celebrate birthdays because the only biblical record of birthdays involved someone getting killed. They only celebrate one day - which by the way involved someone getting killed - the memorial of Christ's death.
proplog2
JoinedPosts by proplog2
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26
New and confused
by afrothunder88 inhello peoples.
my mommy let me join this forum.
her name on this is bittersweet.
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
minimus:
Since 9/11 it doesn't take much insight to predict dire events in the near future. How you interpret the "meaning" of those events is what is important.
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
minimus:
Your answer is fogged over by your failure to note the exact scenario I am suggesting.
I didn't say that the Watchtower simply changes their interpretation to
"include New York City as being (A?) fullfilment of the "disgusting thing".
I gave a very specific scenario:
1. New York City is destroyed. This means Wall street, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, The symbol of American Prosperity and business. New York..New York. Dead = 800,000. Damage 1 Trillion dollars.
2. JW's decide to leave the USA. because after this "extraordinary" event they discover that the USA is going to undergo a destruction that parallels the AD 70 situation with Jerusalem.
3. Finger of blame is pointing toward Putin & Russia. Hostilities escalating between the USA & Russia.
And to that you respond:
They mean nothing to me. They have proven themselves to be "false prophets" and "apostate".
I think in that situation you and many others on this forum would have second thoughts. Of course you can say "this is a hypothetical situation". But it is a situation that has come into the realm of high probability since 9/11.
You can blame me for getting carried away with speculation - but this is no longer simply "WILD" speculation. It is part of the calculus of civil defense authorities, defense department, and insurance actuaries.
I speculate. But you and many others here are in denial.
This is HOW you are in denial.
It isn't simply a matter of saying "I don't worry about things I can't do anything about." But you make fun of JW's because they have been talking about this kind of thing for a hundred plus years. Sure they have goofed up on a lot of this. The first century Christians (especially John) thought it was the final hour when it wasn't. Almost everyone who has become a JW - joined because they are basically affraid of "the things coming upon the inhabited earth" Luke 21:26
When these things REALLY do begin to happen what is going to enable YOU to "raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up"? Are you going to be content to think that congress, or the President is going to put a positive spin on everything? Maybe Yerusalym will keep his gun clean and his ammunition dry.
Metatron tries to bring his positive thinking to this board. Technology is wonderful. We are on the verge of curing cancer, and every disease known to man. We are figuring out how to keep the teleomeres from unraveling and stop aging. We are experimenting with anti-gravity technologies, unlimited energy sources, drugs to enhance our thinking abilities. But one bomb can suck the money out of the pool and dry up serious research for a 100 years.
There is one thing about JW's that prepares them for survival. They are free of the gravitational pull of nationalism. If the USA looks like its going to go down they have an escape. They can flee to their brothers in other lands. The "brotherhood" DOES have survival value. The average person can't pick up and escape. Unless of course they have relatives in a safe (safer) haven. Many Jews who had relatives in other countries were able to arrange exit and escape the holocaust. JW's have relatives (brothers) all over the world that can provide refuge. You don't build an organization like that over night. It takes at least a 100 years of hard work like JW's have been doing to develop a significant organization. People wouldn't do that if they thought the "end" was a hundred years away. They have to believe it is going to happen to "them" in "their" lifetime. At this point there are enough JW's in South America to house the million JW's in North America.
It may be that you (minimus) will miss the train out. I'm sure there are a lot of JW's that would drop out of the organization when they are presented with the option of taking their chances in the USA or having to give everything up to live with a bunch of poor people in South America. So be it. "If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is meant for captivity, he goes away into captivity. If anyone will kill with the sword, he must be killed with the sword. Here is where it means the endurance and faith of the holy ones."
Of course it remains to be seen what WILL happen. But don't mock those who have invested their lives in promises of survival.
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
jgnat:
I'm still eating the cans of tuna. Quite a few bottles of water left too.
No actually I AM a false prophet. At least the date was soon enough that no one needed to alter their lives. I am still pondering whether the counting of days has any significance as a prediction of when trouble begins. The various prophecies that involve days seem to be based on accurately interpreting some special event as the beginning and THEN you count days to the end of trouble. This is the best of all possible worlds. Something has to happen to trigger the counting of days.
I figure if it it hasn't started you have approximately 2300 days before the trouble ends. This would mean that the 2300 days ends at some significant point on the calendar from which you can count backwards. If you consider Nisan 14 a "special day" then the 2300 days counting backward would bring you to some point in the Month of December/January. If you count 2300 days back from the Jewish New Year you would end up in May/June. The 2300 days backward counting would bring you to June 3rd this year. But I don't see anything ominous shaping up - except perhaps maybe a possible peace breakthrough between Israel & Palestine. Bush has threatened sanctions against Israel if it doesn't proceed in good faith.
The December situation seemed more ominous.
Again, I think of this as a game UNTIL.... something significant happens: like the destruction of New York City. The point is to stay awake!
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
Minimus:
Proplog, most Witnesses would call you an "apostate" and maybe even a "false prophet".
Do those labels mean anything to YOU? What is your intention of saying that? Why don't you answer some questions and engage in the dialog you seem to want to stimulate by your many questions? Do you think that YOU are the question asker and therefore you don't need to answer questions? There is an old technique that Fritz Perls (psychiatrist) used to encourage honest communication. Turn your questions into demands. So I will now rephrase the above question as demands. Minimus: Tell me straight forward that YOU think I am "just" another apostate and perhaps a dreaded "false prophet"!!! I think you are still subject to JW think. Those words "apostate" and "false prophet" still carry weight of a sort with you otherwise you wouldn't bring them up without explaining your intentions in making such an obvious statment. I almost forgot - YOU are the question asker and therefore you don't need to answer questions. You left one of my questions unanswered about what you would do if JW's determined that the destruction of NYC is the disgusting thing standing where it ought not and therefore is a signal to begin an orderly exit of JW's from the United States? Let me add to that. Suppose NYC is destroyed. JW's leave the USA to live with their brothers in South America. Then it is discovered that the bomb that destroyed NYC was a Russian Nuke and Putin is implicated. Next the USA makes demands that the Russians disarm to prevent a recurrence. The Russians are at that point clearly in a use 'em or loose 'em situation. Would you think that perhaps you would be better off in the Southern Hemisphere?
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
Officially the Watchtower says the end is near. But even when they said it was coming in 1975 they were constantly engaged in long range planning. They started building projects in the early '70's that went way past the "end".
A lot has to do with your personality. People who are skilled in the construction trades tend to be more concrete in their thinking too. They think in terms of the here and now. Those in the construction trades have always been the back-bone of the congregations. The Watchtower tries to turn these "construction" types into teachers and you end up with some pretty horrible peformances. They treat humans as if they were "things".
Fred Franz was one of the few who had the luxury of living the scholars life. As the "prophet-in-residence" he usually went unchallenged. Idealistic, teacher, types were encouraged to burn themselves out in missionary work. The big motivator types who would normally have been entrepreneurs or sales managers were put on the road to keep people enthused.
The organization is built on the end being near. If the end isn't "soon" there is no urgency to sacrifice personal comfort to preach. After the 1975 fiasco is when you started to get a lot of assembly halls built. It kept the "builder-types" busy and gave them validation. I personally knew a couple missionaries who gave up their assingments after 1975. Without the end being close they saw no need to speak a foreign language and put up with unbearable heat, humidity & malaria.
Since Franz died they have lost their chief defender of "the end is near".
But, I feel that the loss of reason behind the vision is another "sign" of the end.
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
do you have any idea how much damage eschatology is doing to you?
I live a very happy and full life. I have never been materialistic. I continue to read widely in the fields of science, philosophy, psychology. I don't agree with 90% of what I read in the "Reasoning" book. I don't suffer from anxiety attacks. I'm not depressed, or alcoholic. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in a God function.
I am a third generation JW. I don't go from door to door. I talk openly with my family about my personal belief system. None of my Children are "believers" although most go to the Kingdom Hall because they enjoy the network of people who at least make an effort at living moral lives.
My interest in Bible prophecy has been a life-long pursuit. My ideas about prophecy are not from any special revelation. I believe most of the Bible is Levite nonsense. However there is a coherence to the Bible's overall message about the destiny of man. Certain sequences of Daniel & Revelation match real events that are taking place now that are not simple probability. When you have a set of 10 events that occur each with a minimum probability of 50% you quickly end up with odds that would ordinarily get your attention. If someone is able to predict 10 coin tosses in a row it is safe to assume that they "know" something about coin tossing.
I continue to believe that JW's have a special role to play. It also makes sense that they won't understand prophecy beyond what they need to know.
Just as Jesus was rejected by a large number of his "disciples" because he didn't fullfill their expectations of what the messiah was to accomplish, I believe many are disappointed with their sojourn as JW's for a similar reason. It is sufficient for me that they are anti-nationalistic and refuse to kill others in the name of national defense. They are exemplary in this. That is the basis of their worldwide brotherhood. That is the purpose of Christian ministry - you don't have to belong to a certain national group to be blessed.
A lot of the complaints about JW's by former JW's are about personality conflicts. Wherever people are close and really get to know each other there is a tendency for certain conflicts to emerge. That's human nature. Somebody is always feeling slighted in organizations. Hierarchy is a natural human tendency.
Some of this is kind of rambling but I want to get accross that while my interest in prophecy is more than casual it is no different from any other field of interest a human might choose to learn about. Health & diet, Cigar Smoking, Cooking, Baseball, Music, telescope building, stamp collecting, politics, photography, you name it & there are people who have ordinary interest and then there are people who develop an extraordinary interest in these things. Prophecy is no different. Just fewer people are interested.
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
Minimus:
So that would be just another scare basically.
What if JW's interpreted such an event as the disgusting thing standing where it shouldn't and proceeded to arrange for American Witnesses to "get out of her" Babylon/Jerusalem. You would stay in the USA? You would absolutely stay?
Well, that is what is going to happen!
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Need some help on the blood issue
by TemeculaMole in.
i was having a discussion with my mom about the blood issue.
she asked me a good question which i did not have the answer for.. what was the purpose of the god saying to abstain or dont eat blood?
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proplog2
"Are you aware that NOTHING from outside that passes into a man can defile him? - it passes not into his heart but into his intestines and it passes out into the sewer? Thus he declared ALL foods clean." Mark 7:18,19
You can eat blood if you desire. You can transfuse blood if needed. Hey, you can even smoke cigarettes - nothing, NOTHING, NO-THING, ...that passes into a man can defile him!!!!
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36
Do Any JW's Believe The End Will Come In Their Lifetime???
by minimus ini believe most witnesses do not want to even think about this question.
confronting it is too painful for most.
look at the way the typical jw lives now.
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proplog2
There was a brief scare for some on 9--11. But that's gone.
So, Minimus, what will your reaction be some morning when the TODAY show suddenly stops in the middle of Al Roker's weather report and your local NBC affiliate informs you that they lost the feed from NYC. The next thing you hear is the repeated announcement from the emergency broadcast system that there has been a catastrophic act of terrorism on America. Please stay tuned for further information. The President will speak shortly....
Fellow Americans. I am speaking to you from Air Force One. As of 10:00 am Eastern Daylight Standard time a nuclear deivice was exploded destroying lower Manhattan. The epicenter has not been determined but the initial estimate is that the main blast area was 1 mile in diameter in the vicinity of the old WTC. It is not known yet who is responsible or how the weapon was delivered. Technicians are studying samples to see what kind of Nuclear material was used in order to determine who may have been involved in this horrible attack. You are viewing me through our emergency broadcast system. As of 10:30 EDT marshall law has been declared. This will be in effect until we can determine the scope of this attack. Please stay tuned for further instructions. Your local Civil Defense authorities will advise people in their jurisdictions about orderly evacuation of work places & schools. Grocery stores and Gas Stations will be closed immediately to avoid panic. Be courageous. God will carry us through this. Until we talk again - God Bless America.
TEST PATTERN...TEST PATTERN...TEST PATTERN...TESTPATTERN...TESTPATTE
Would that be significant? Or would that just be another "scare".